earned him the nickname "Pied Piper of Tuscon." Arnold Friend seems to hold this same sort of sexual power over Connie as he tells her,

"Yes, I'm your lover. You don't know what that is but you will," he said. "I know that too. I know all about you. But look: it's real nice and you couldn't ask for nobody better than me, or more polite. I always keep my word. I'll tell you how it is, I'm always nice at first, the first time. I'll hold you so tight you won't think you have to try to get away or pretend anything because you'll know you can't."

And, somehow, Connie stays. She doesn't run, even when every instinct tells her that he's "crazy." She listens and she is convinced to leave with him.

Arnold Friend also appreciates beautiful women:

"I don't like them fat. I like them the way you are, honey," he said.

This both implies that Connie isn't the first young girl he's led astray and that he looks for a certain physical appearance in his victims. Charles Schmid also killed three teenage girls, all who were noted for their beauty.

Oates attributes both the profile of Schmid she read in Life magazine and Bob Dylan's song "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as dual inspirations for her chilling short story.

Much like the fictional character of Arnold Friend, Charles Howard Schmid, Jr. was a liar who attempted to influence others to like him with his calculated stories. He created a false persona that resembled Elvis Presley. Similar to Oates's fictional character, Schmid wore pancake makeup and used lip balm. He even placed an artificial mole on his cheek, and he stuffed his cowboy boots with newspaper and flattened cans to make himself seem taller. Arnold Friend is also described as short and seems to have done something to make himself appear taller:

He was standing in a strange way, leaning back against the car as if he were balancing himself. He wasn't tall.... His face was a familiar face. 

Schmid and Arnold Friend try to relate to the young girls who become victims. Arnold tries to seduce Connie; Schmid had his girlfriend bring her friend Aileen on a date with him and a friend. He then drove to a "nice spot" at a nearby desert, where the girl was raped and killed while Mary, his girlfriend, casually listened to a radio in the car.

In Oates's story, Arnold tells Connie that he is going to "come inside you where it's all secret" and later drives Connie toward "vast sunlit reaches of land." 

Schmid becomes the basis for Arnold Friend in Oates' short story.  Some of the descriptions of Arnold Friend are extremely close to how Schmid actually was.  The cowboy boots and the lifts inside them to make it appear that Arnold is taller than he actually is bears a striking resemblance to Schmid.  Additionally, Oates talks about the caked up makeup of Arnold Friend, which is another physical similarity shared with Schmid.  The need to appear young and then to be accepted by younger people as a means of bolstering his own sense of identity is also another similarity that both men share.  The "Pied Piper" element of Schmid is something that Oates conveys through the golden jalopy and the use of younger people's slang.  I think that a final comparison would be the setting of the murder.  The ending of the Oates story is one where Connie is entering a realm unknown to her, yet one that is laid out in front of her.  She sees a world in front of her that is unrecognizable, but one that she understands will mark her own end.  To enter the mindset of the young woman about to die is where Oates' story is unbelievably powerful and one that might be applicable to Schmid's victim, Alleen Rowe, who died in the Arizona desert.